"Tramel didnt believe in Marketing. He believed in sales. " ... hell of a guy.

I wish we could see in an alternate reality how the computer world would be when Jack never left Commodore.

@MomMom4Cubs

2 жыл бұрын

Hear, hear!

@xRussianbishop

2 жыл бұрын

Amigabook, The Cphone, I can see it now

@JeffreyPiatt

2 жыл бұрын

He is the man who destroyed Atari.

@rabidbigdog

2 жыл бұрын

It would have been ever-cheaper incompatible computers, with 40 columns and chiclet keyboards, Atari would have done justice to the Amiga design and Commodore would have failed sooner.

@Waynesification

2 жыл бұрын

There was mention, of a model that sounded like z8000, the 16 bit z80 CPU. There was a 6548 (mc6848). Which might have been a semi Amiga like chip originally planned to be used in the coco3. I wonder where the C65 design came from? Somebody failed to design a 16 bit 6502 early on, and another company due it. But, Mos was stuck at 1 and 2mhz. I imagine they didn't get money to set up more modern Ines, to run 8Ghz plus, 16 bit widened version of a 6502, before figuring out a modern version. The plus 4 would have been much better off though, as Jack wanted better things in it. However, a lot of this is lack of finances. Jack had to go to his Angel investor to get approvals. If he had the budget, what could he have done?

I still remember myself crying my eyes out when I got an C16 for my birthday instead of the C64. That day the world ended for me.... I never got over it even lol

@randommkeyz5029

Жыл бұрын

C16 are cool af

@valley_robot

Жыл бұрын

C16 , better than no computer eh

@guyh3403

Жыл бұрын

@@valley_robot That's true hehe

@mmille10

Жыл бұрын

I think I would've had a similar reaction, lol. :)

@raypatterson1899

Жыл бұрын

LOL I was that young boy too! Came to love my C16 in the end

The Commodore 16 was my first home computer. Its failure was good for me... I got the computer for $49 and the 1531 datasette for $19 on clearance at Target.

@kimgkomg

4 жыл бұрын

So you got it for it's intended launch price? What a steal?

@mozamboni

3 жыл бұрын

@@kimgkomg LOL @ "What a steal?"

@brokeandtired

3 жыл бұрын

I paid more for a Plus 4...BUT I also massively gained from access to cheap game tapes.

@gloomyblackfur399

2 жыл бұрын

@@kimgkomg If you watched the episode, that's the price Jack wanted to sell it at, but not the price Commodore greedily tried to unload it. So, yes, a great deal.

@shaungreer3350

2 жыл бұрын

i got my c16 from my mate for £10 when he found it in his wardrobe

Weird Commodore logic: this gonna be a business machine, so we remove hw sprites and rich sound but *put 2 joysticks in it!*

@enossoares6907

3 жыл бұрын

Lol

@valinromania9639

3 жыл бұрын

yeah but if it is both there the money comes in

@croysk

3 жыл бұрын

And no 80 column mode

@TortillaYT

2 жыл бұрын

Keyboard and mouse? Idk

@ppprime98K

2 жыл бұрын

@@TortillaYT As far as i know using a mouse at the time were very rare and using a mouse was getting common in the 90's

The C64 was a corner-stone to my childhood... after enough protesting about my gifted Timex Sinclair 1000. It was magical. Thank you to all the engineers who worked on it... sincerely.

@maxxdahl6062

3 жыл бұрын

Mine too. Still have my breadbin 64. But now days I mostly just use my c64 mini out of ease of use.

"He liked to make an OK profit, but not an absurd profit" Gaming company need to take example from jack tremmels!

@TheCastellan

4 жыл бұрын

And the rest of the world.

@MinecraftPlayer-tl5lx

4 жыл бұрын

*Tramiel

@Alex-nk8bw

4 жыл бұрын

CDPR obviously did. 🙂

@felagoncalves

3 жыл бұрын

If you don't like it when companies want to make "(...) an absurd profit", then STOP BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS! That's how the market works: if you produce quality goods at a fair price, people will buy it. If the price's too high or the quality isn't there, you'll not sell anything! Therefore, you'll go bankrupt. Why is it so difficult to fathom that you can simply CHOOSE not to buy, say, EA videogames? Why are companies "evil" simply because they want to make money? Is it not allowed to make a living out of being a developer, let alone its employers?

@Tahngarthor

3 жыл бұрын

The reality is game prices are the same or lower today as they were 30 years ago- and they cost vastly more to make than they did 30 years ago. This is why the trend is to include all the money making gimmicks like DLC, loot boxes, etc. - because they actually make far less money off each game sale than they did decades ago. So prices stay at 1990 levels but they still make their buck.

The Plus/4 was popular in Finland and Sweden. RIP Dave DiOrio

@allanm6246

4 жыл бұрын

Sold well in the Hungary and the C16 Starter Pack had decent sales in the UK too.

@memmoman

4 жыл бұрын

hej

@Kivikesku

2 жыл бұрын

No it was not popular in Finland.

@michaelolz

2 жыл бұрын

@@allanm6246 didn’t Jack lay off a ton of people at AT&T or am I thinking about a different CEO?

@allanm6246

2 жыл бұрын

@@michaelolz Not sure. I need to go look at the documentary again. If it is still on KZread.

The Plus 4 was my first computer, and it's very dear to my heart. We used the crap out of it. Most of the games were disappointing, but I probably spent more time on it trying to program in Basic, using a lightpen to draw pictures, and messing around with the word processor. Later when we got a floppy drive and printer, I was able to save & print documents and so I started writing all my school work on it. I even digitised the account books for a local newsagents that my mum worked at. My dad was into amateur radio and even used the Plus 4 to access RTTY bulletin boards. It was excruciatingly slow, but interesting nonetheless.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewatched these documentaries. Fantastic work, and I’m still hyped for the Amiga documentary when that gets released, too.

@katsumikougen8351

Жыл бұрын

The Amiga documentary is available now. You're lucky, my man! kzread.info/dash/bejne/nZ6V0suOgbLPYtY.html

@NavyDood21

Жыл бұрын

I know exactly what you mean! I like to rewatch it every so often, since it is so well done. These computers were a bit before my time, was born in the late 80s, but it is still fun to use. This series is what really ended up kicking off my interest in vintage computers.

I had the Plus4. My parents wouldn't buy me a computer before Aldi in Germany sold the complete package of Plus4 and 1551 for I don't know how cheap. It was a great computer - I really learned programming in both Basic and assembler. The built-in word processor was unusable to be honest, so in the late 1980s I wrote my own text processor fully in assembler code. It supported my Epson 9-needle dot matrix printer's commands to switch between fonts and styles. I also built a b/w scanner based on the printer's print head motion, an infrared reflex coupler and a variable voltage-level comparator. SInce the Plus/4 wasn't fast enough I would sample a full line from the scan head into a 2 kbit static ram which then was read out into memory before scanning the next row. I really loved this machine!

@uwezimmermann5427

3 жыл бұрын

@referral madness many languages... I mostly use python and C/C++ nowadays, but also perl, php. Some regular maintenance on older pascal code. Then a little assembly for different processors. And I believe I still put something together in basic as well... I would not count matlab/octave as real languages perhaps...

@uwezimmermann5427

3 жыл бұрын

@referral madness "Learning assembler in 2020" - not for practical use, modern C-compilers produce very efficient code and assembler language would be different for every different processor family - but in order to learn how a processor works I would like to recommend to at least look into the assembly language of some processor, preferably a modern RISC-architecture (ARM, AVR, RISC-V, PIC) Around 1990 I programmed my own text editor using 6502 assembly language. Lately I used some rows of inline assembler code inside a C-project because I needed exact timing of a loop on the same scale as the processor's clock frequency. The 24 bit down-counting loop takes exactly 6 clock cycles on an ATmega with a 6 MHz clock. I could have used the 16-bit timer instead, but I wanted 24 bit resolution...

@uwezimmermann5427

3 жыл бұрын

@referral madness I don't know if this is the right place for such discussions - but I'd like to recommend you to watch Ben Eater's 8-bit series, currently he is designing a 6502-based computer on breadboards kzread.info/dash/bejne/eq2u0NSddLa5d7A.html When it comes to the binary numbers your are absolutely right. If you take a certain value and subtract 1 once very microsecond you can create a controlled delay. If you have an 8-bit CPU then the native numeric format is a byte and after a max of 256 µs your timing stops. If you add a second byte which you decrement every time your first byte reaches 0 you get up to 256 x 256 µs or 65536 µs or 65.5 ms. Add another byte to effectively count down 3x8=24 bits and you can realize accurate delays between 1 µs and 16.8 seconds with a resolution of 1 µs.

@uwezimmermann5427

3 жыл бұрын

@referral madness oh, you mean µs? That's microseconds or one-millionth of a second. 1000 µs = 1 ms and 1000 ms = 1 s, where s is the SI-standard letter for the unit second.

(22:51) Pac-Pac is my game. Thanks for sharing.

@yeetusdeleti2948

3 жыл бұрын

im shocked that this is the shortest thing ive ever seen that's related to someone making a game

@skoro1975asn

3 жыл бұрын

@referral madness Thank you. I only know the assembly language. This is my hobby :). My latest Plus/4 game: kzread.info/dash/bejne/m6SKpLyJga6qlqg.html

@fernandobernardo6324

3 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for sharing your work with us

@triobros98

2 жыл бұрын

I'm surprised you made that game good job

There's a Commodore 64 available in my area for $100. Never had an interest in them before I found 8bit guy. **Update** I found a Commodore 64, 1541 Floppy and a Printer for 50 bucks. Pretty happy with it. These history episodes are fantastic! Can't wait for part five.

@classiccomputers6211

5 жыл бұрын

Is it a complete working set? Seems like a bit much.

@SuperNicktendo

5 жыл бұрын

ClassicComputers complete in box and power supply. Unfortunately in my area I haven't found many for less.

@frankschneider6156

5 жыл бұрын

Until then you might wanna try the outstanding VICE Emulator. The C64 is a classic machine (grew up with it) and you can't really understand gaming history, if you don''t know the C64 (and partially the Amiga). Not to mention that at least the old 8-Bit home computers were pretty much bare-bones, meaning you really had to learn about computers to get somehow along with them (started learning Assembly because of it. E.g. using Android isn't making you do something like that. Android doesn't even give you a proper cli out of the box). This means learning about computing was highly incentivized, while modern systems try to shield the user as far as possible from any kind of technicalities.

@SuperNicktendo

5 жыл бұрын

Frank Schneider cool. Thanks Everyone for their input. I'll check out some cheaper options

@DaveF.

5 жыл бұрын

Plus, with an emulator, you'll be able to play games from both Europe and the states - not necessarily the case with a physical C64.

Greetings from Hungary! :) A rare occasion I'm proud to be Hungarian. Here's my Commodore History: When I was a kid we had a Philips G7000, also known as Magnavox Odyssey in the US. Later somehow we got a ZX Spectrum but neither of them was really strong with games. Then I remember the faithful night when my uncle came to visit and brought a Commodore 64 to my parents. I was sent in a room because it was supposed to be a christmas gift but I heard them over speaking "this can help them with learning". We got it for christmas and the two very first games I saw were Donald Duck's Playground and Yogi Bear & Friends in the Greed Monster. Both looked awesome but more importantly that Yogi game sounded super awesome! Later I got to know many great classics on the C64, my favorite to this day is Creatures 2 - Torture Trouble. At first we only had a datasette and tapes but later my brother saved up to buy a floppy drive. Whoa, those were the days, playing Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders and such. Later my brother sold the C64 for about $18 and used that money to buy a used Amiga500 for roughly about $70. Do I have to tell you? Mind mind was blown! The first game was Flashback and I still love it to this day. We had many great games like Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Bubba N Stix, Yo Joe, Ruff N Tumble just to name a few. Later my brother sold the Amiga to help it financially to get a PC with Intel Celeron Mendocino CPU, 32MBs of ram and 8MB of whatever video card... So the great Commodore era of our family ended there. I have fond memories of the C64, the Amiga500 and the PC period, in Hungary we skipped the video game crash, we mostly skipped the Nintendo, Super Nintendo and Sega consoles, we mostly had ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64's and Amigas. Today I'm a console gamer with many consoles and a huge library of games (from PS1 through Dreamcast and Wii to PS4) but I still go back to the good old days and play some Amiga games. Last year I bought an ugly-dirty A500 without a power supply risking it might not be a working unit, cleaned it up, bought several boxed original games. I love the Amiga! Thank you for your time ;)

@stephenpeterson7366

5 жыл бұрын

Dukefazon you surrived communism

@RetroDawn

4 жыл бұрын

Don't forget the Enterprise 64/128. That was pretty popular in Hungary. And the Pravetz Oric and Apple II clones.

You know when a show is good when you're bursting for a pee but want to keep watching regardless.

I would like to ask Bill something. 3 years late I admit. After the commodore 64, we were expecting an update the next year or so. The machine could have used extra sprites, like at least 16 a line, 16 colour routes, more colours, higher resolution graphics with 80 column text, and more ram. In other words, we needed something a bit like the C65 inside, in a plus 4 case. With a bigger business version with more memory banks and drive. The question is, why didn't they do this? Why did they make the c128 and plus 4, c16 and so many others? The commodore 128, could have had an better integrated 80 column mode, in a Vic 3 chip. The plus 4 should have had a 80 column mode for business use, and sprites and sound. We were told the C65 or 64GS, was going be Amiga like and compete with the Super Nintendo, but of course it seems to be no where near that, and needed at least 16 sprites per line to avoid the flashing we see on MSX and master system games. By the time it was ready to be released, the integrated ARM chipsets would have been better, and could probably have been made to emulate the commodore 64. The Amiga acquisition saved Commodore, for a while. Also Jack's refusal to utilise the Atari 7800 chipset at the time in an 8 bit computer, or redesigned into the original ST. It was the most advanced low end architecture until the Amiga, and at time of it's original release. Fully untilised, it could have taken on the Nintendo NES in console version. The Atari 7800 chipset was a well designed external chipset, by a professional arcade game hardware company. But instead, Jack scrapped it, only to send out old un-updated stock years latter. This was very inadequate compared to 16 and 32 bit machines out then or coming out. It's ironic that Jack's low budget approach likely held back Atari, from getting the Amiga, and using the 7800 at the time it was premium, and a few other things. But, also held back Commodore with the Plus 4 series, with no Geos, 80 column mode sprites or better sound. No c64 replacement or more advanced c128. Another thing is. If Atari had managed to acquire the Amiga, or released the 7800 in a home computer, Sinclair research could have been able to have less market pressure to release the Super Spectrum, which was built let an Amiga with redundancies removed. But, that was another story. The company behind that, Flair, eventually bringing their expertise to the Atari Jaguar (The computer console and games markets were full of failures, of companies to buy externally designed superior graphics chip hardware, that other competitors subsequently bought and succeeded with. Under shooting where they needed to be to beat competitors accross the life cycle, was common. An prime latter console example was the Sega Mega Drive/Genisis. It could have used more sprites, 256 colour, and a 80 column and high resolution mode, and easily be sold as a second cheap computer competitor to the Amiga and above the C64. It was like a MSX3 could have been, but like the MSX machines, except maybe the MSX2R, it undershot in the graphics department, where it could have had a wider market, and then went with limited stacked expansion options, rather than a new machine. The market was so good at shooting itself in the foot, that Commodore happily survived another another 5 years before decline, where, even having maybe three superior next generation Amiga replacement designs to choose from, they still couldn't do it). A shame. The shift to the consoles, the high end and the PC, really took away from the low end computer market. Even Sinclair suffered the exact same issue. Despite having a hires chip in the latter Timex model, and the Sinclair QL, which was also 8 bit and had more colours per pixel, they never made the Sinclair Spectrum with these. I have been interested in being involved in kickstarting an updated Sinclair ZX-81, as a what if demo, of how they could have designed it better with the processor node and technology potential of the day. With hires tile based graphics, 80 columns, 4 and 16 palletted colour, even 256 colour, and vector graphics, by simple alterations to the IC design, and sound. Then showing how such a machine could have been released at the time of the Atari VCS (with economical memory size etc. As it is tile based, not much memory is needed to do superior 1970's graphics, and early 1980's, even up to the time of the 7800 or Amiga). Sold as a computer console with low-cost storage alternative technology to cartridges, wireless controllers and maybe wireless video transmission. This would put graphics quality 5 years ahead. I was interested in doing a retro chip based on integrated Misc technology and more advanced graphics techniques, after that. The forth misc trchnology would have added another level of performance, putting 16 bit graphics in the 8 bit era. Misc is like the ultimate one could do in the resource hungry era. I've figured out, that pretty much any enhancement to 1970'a and 1980's low end computers, could be outdone using Misc and Arm based designs. It's pretty amazing, to think something that could be pit on a pin head now, could do that. A above 16 bit misc processor could probably be fine in over 4, 000 transistors, though I like to think less. An early one with video coprocessor was less than 10,000 transistors, but maybe that was a more integrated package. At 0.8 micron process node, it was doing up to 500 mips. So, at a 6 micron mode, it is likely to able to do a lot compared to an Atari 2600. This is before you put a simplified alternative circuit in that performs like an Atari 7800 graphic circuit. But, just tile based graphics is sufficient at 6 micron, with whatever transistor saving being used for on-chip SRAM. This can be a single chip system, or three die on carrier I'm chip system to improve yields.

@guyh3403

Жыл бұрын

You call this a question? 😦

@Waynesification

Жыл бұрын

@@guyh3403 it's a simple enough question, follow the singular (I think) ? Mark. Anyway, the stuff at Commodore was nothing compared to the mess at Sinclair. I found last night that many of the things I said, why didn't they do that, they actually had under construction but didn't bring out. The QL chipset had parts of it meant to be expanded into a Sinclair Spectrum compatable design. They should have made the spectrum based on it, and a better QL version on the 68000, with better graphics. The 68008 compromise hurt it. They should have had joke in the design for 16 and 256 colour and colour, pallets at all resolutions up to 1024x768 or 1280x720, and simply enabled, or added to it, for new computers, based on a common design. Some simple blitter and vector drawing, and tile graphics, would have been all that was needed to keep it going until the 3D era. We were really stuffed. Only Acorn/Amiga/ST eventually/Super Famicom seems to have pit in enough effort. There was a cut down Sinclair game console, which is maybe within the range of what I wanted to do. There QL chipset had been proposed to go into a Spectrum +. A 68000 based QL with 3.5 inch floppy. Etc etc. There were so many things that had they been fine might have progressed the company and saved it. One thing was not done due to fear it might be a repeat of the QL failure. There were Timex versions with better graphics, and thru could even put some extra modes into the new style Spectrum. Allan Sugar let somebody these things escape. The Loki hardware design was so good, it could have made Amstrad a top brand in the Commodore Amiga section of the market, even if not 16 bit, just on performance and price. Plus, these guys went on to design the Atari Jaguar chipset, and were up to design 16 and 32 bit processors, to cheaply compete with Amiga 32 bit. It's possible they could have competed with the Sony PS1, if they had gotten going earlier and made a success at Sinclair. The problem was no real formalisation of work and plan. People worked on what thru liked and got approval to advance things off of 1 of 3 guys. So things were not focused to move fast enough in best directions. I actually appreciate how Clive ran things that way, hiring bright young minds and letting them loose to do great stuff. But, I would focused more and give more orders, and vetting, to move things forwards. The c128 was a bit like that, but the wrong graphics chip was used, and other things. A vic-3 with the above spec was needed, as a cheap 64 upgrade and business machine basis as an alternative to the pro Amiga, until the Amiga could be made cheap enough to replace it. 50 million( Commodore 64/128/256/512/1MB, could then be possible, by 1990, and a better chip plant. A lot of this stuff, was buy now, if it had come out. The efforts on 16 bit 6502 was not funny, and the z8000 was too delayed. Commodore could have designed in blitter graphics base on tiles, instead of sprites to the 64, like the Atari 7800 had (not tile one though), which could have reduced chip size, and made it possible to make the plus 4 with it cheap instead of the 128.

@johnnylongfeather3086

Жыл бұрын

Wtf

Great video as always! But a really sad ending right before it cuts out it seems like he was going to cry over his friend passing away. RIP Dave DiOrio.

@nux3960

4 жыл бұрын

i honestly felt very sad

@possiblyashrimp66

4 жыл бұрын

he just blinked and looked down

It's important to remember that Jack Tramell was a my-way or the highway guy. That's a strong trait to have when it comes to getting one's way, but potentially lethal if you don't have the clear focus of someone like Alan Suger. Suger knew where the "strengths" of his business lay and mostly stuck to them, only branching out where he had advantages to back them up. Tramell. Clearly Tramell did not know his own company so well, because he wanted what "he" desired, not what his company could actually do. He also missed something EVERYONE seeking to sell a "cheap" business computer kept forgetting. Businesses are willing to shell out some extra money for key requirements they genuinely need. You NEED a better keyboard. You NEED a built-in disk drive. You NEED a printer. You NEED enough columns of text, exc. If those drive up the cost a bit, then so be it. But for gods sake!... {(Put) (Yourself) (In) (Your) (Customers) (Shoes!)} I'm seeing that over and over again with businesses that fail. It's not about what you want, it's what "they" want. If you can't get past your ego, then only dabble in business where the two match! In this case, you had a case of the headless chicken when Jack left Commador. It's a problem we're seeing woefully repeat itself with Macintosh these days. But it was his mistake to neglect his marketing team's integrity. When he left, there wasn't anyone to take up what he had basically taken entirely on his shoulders. It's no wonder the plus ended up the way it did.

@jordanscherr6699

5 жыл бұрын

Thus why I respect the man. He and I do differ in that my first priority is not money, but the affect of my efforts. For me, money is a resource to an end with value in that aspect alone. That said, we share the same cold focus on what our clients want, albeit I do currently sometimes slip due to enthusiasm.. heh! But I never "ignore" the importance of the client's needs above my own.

@The8BitGuy

5 жыл бұрын

Actually, the market was so young at this point, that most companies did not understand this. In fact, this was at a time when most companies still didn't have computers on every desk for every employee. So it was hard to predict what would be actually needed by companies. It turns out things like networking capability ended up being far more important than disk drives or printers.

@jordanscherr6699

5 жыл бұрын

Agreed. You would have needed to look long and hard, or possess a vivid imagination, to see what people might need. As for the CPC, Suger didn't mess around with "whom" built the machine. (at least after a shaky start.) A proper and passionate computer company was found when it became clear help was needed. The architecture was shifted to something the OS programmer clearly understood. Staff where brought in from Cambridge as needed. So time might have been short, but all the cards where in the development's favor. When I say passionate about their work, I mean it. This was the equivalent of the BBC giving Acorn the boost they where looking for. Free publicity and mass production that was too good to miss DESPITE the crunched deadline. They weren't going to mess around with an opportunity like that.

@lordevyl8317

5 жыл бұрын

In all honesty, Clive Sinclair was like that too, although his execution was dodgy at times

I hope you get to your Amiga episode soon. The Amiga was my intro to home computing and holds a dear place in my heart.

@fernanr8377

2 жыл бұрын

just a few months and it will finaly arrive!

Rest in peace Dave! The +4 was my first computer, which started a long career in game development!

Rest in peace, Dave DiOrio.

@gdplayer1035

4 жыл бұрын

OoOoOoOoO

@jasminejohnston6393

4 жыл бұрын

Who was Dave DiOrio?

@BaggyCEO89

4 жыл бұрын

RIP

@mountainbearoutdoors

4 жыл бұрын

@@jasonmurawski5877 too right, without guys like this engineering the old tech your immature ass wouldn't even have the ability to run a childs game like Roblox. pathetic waste of oxygen.

@theyamo7219

4 жыл бұрын

RIP Chuck Peddle

Man, the beard makes Bil look like he's aged 20 years in the past 5 years. Great to see this bit of Commodore history brought to light.

@Jerkwad152

5 жыл бұрын

It's a proven scientific fact that a beard adds +10 to your STR stat though.

This series is why I like KZread, thorough, intelligent, interesting and very professional. Well done

@rbrtck

2 жыл бұрын

It depends entirely on the independent content creator! There is plenty of crap on KZread, as well.

@MomMom4Cubs

2 жыл бұрын

A truly underrated comment!

For anyone who typed a program in the 80's from a magazine into a computer this series is a must.

I always loved that black breadbox design with the gray keys, I wish the C-64 had shipped in it!

@CJ-rf9jm

5 жыл бұрын

I've seen people doing them in vinyl dyes for diff colours. 1 in the user group I got to did a blue 64C, another did a breadbin 64 in purple with green keyboard (aka the hulk 64)

@boheyo

5 жыл бұрын

I think they went along with design trends of the time where black plastic = consumer electronics and games and beige = big boy pants computer but yeah that looks a lot better to me as well.

I love your Commodore videos. I have such great memories of figuring out BASIC on the C64 as a kid. Best machine ever made. :)

@frankschneider6156

5 жыл бұрын

Clickety Clack I guess it (together with movies like War Games or Tron) did this to a whole generation in the US and Europe and thus shaped the minsd and thus the future of many of these kids. I guess that's far more influential than anything the computer itself did or was capable of.

Really hope to see more of Bill Herd. Especially him talking about the C128. I remember reading a quote of some kind where it was announced "We have compatibility with the 64."

You've always got to appreciate businessmen who decide to sell something at a good price and Jack Tramiel is one of them. Another great vid.

I remember the appearance, failure, and rapid disappearance of these machines. I had a C64 at the time, and like most couldn't understand what Commodore were hoping to achieve. To be fair to them, neither machine was ever marketed as a C64 successor. Here in the UK, it seems most C16s were bought by cash-strapped parents for their children, who were expecting C64s! In recent years, I bought a couple of Plus 4s, and while initially I was going to sell them on, because of the trickle of modern games that come along, I have a soft spot for it. I always feel for the underdog.

@EgoShredder

5 жыл бұрын

Yes that is correct and when I left school in March 1988, I went to work at a local games store. C16 / +4 games rarely sold and had a small shelf space devoted to them. Usually it was clueless parents that came in to buy the games, and looked to me for help in choosing a game for their kids. Most games on sale were budget ones, so no big loss if their kids were disappointed I suppose. Even in 1988, I was amazed to see new releases coming in for the Atari VCS / 2600 etc and even the MSX! The store was still there up until April 2017 but is now gone. bit.ly/2lx3LhF

@MarkTheMorose

5 жыл бұрын

Mastertronic did alright by C16 / Plus 4 owners. Them and Gremlin, actually. But of course, some of the modern games like Pets Rescue are just in a different league.

@GeoNeilUK

5 жыл бұрын

I'm surprised he didn't compare Pets Rescue to the Great Giana Sisters, the platformer that actually did come out on the C64!

@vorrnth8734

5 жыл бұрын

GeoNeilUK Probably because the sisters were just a super mario clone.

@GeoNeilUK

5 жыл бұрын

"Probably because the sisters were just a super mario clone." And Pets Rescue isn't?

When I see '1' near 'The 8-bit Guy' I can literally hear the opening theme in my head

@memmoman

4 жыл бұрын

1 the 8-bit guy

@vittosphonecollection4134

4 жыл бұрын

Same

RIP to your cousin Vinnie. Like your late cousins' contributions to music, your contributions to technology history and curation will live-on for centuries. Thanks for all you do, David!

I would like to give thanks for this video and the work that Bil Herd completed. He played a huge part in our current history.

Bil Herd is a LEGEND going _WAAAAY_ back! So glad to hear from him!

It is only looking at this episode that I remembered I once owned a *Plus/4* . I'd been using a Commodore 64 (always with GEOS software) and I loved it. I can't recall what happened to the Plus/4....but I think it was just too difficult and limited and seemingly backward in comparison to the graphical & fluid (for the times) ease of use of the GEOS/C64 combo. I finally moved on to a MacPlus when it became available, which was an easy move after being in the graphical world of C64/GEOS. I've been an Apple Mac user ever since.💥

When I was a child, the school had Commodore Plus/4 and Commodore 16 computers. I liked the design of the C= Plus/4, the cursor keys. Unfortunatelly, I only had a chance to buy a C= 16, which later got a memory expansion to 64 KB. I used the built in assembly monitor app a lot. :) In the video it is mentioned that most C= 116 machines are in Hungary, Europe. I live in Hungary, and as I mentioned, I learned on these Commodore machines, but I've even never heard about this exact model.

Thank you so much for making this series. It fills in tons of information that I was completely unaware of at the time. Beautiful work!

Commodore 16 was my first ever machine when I was at school. I still remember myself playing Treasure Island and that obsucre "Mayhem" game which was black and yellow with conveyor belts if that rings a bell to anyone! Never did understand that. Trying to find one again is not easy, UK based.

@scouse1967

3 жыл бұрын

They are still selling over on Ebay but for really daft money.Would love to get another Commodore 16 again.Just to keep it as a show piece really.

Another awesome video, and can't wait for the C128, as it's one of my Fav. Commodore machines ever, as it was the machine I first used with GEOS, along with going online with Q-Link, and BBS.

I had a plus 4 and I loved it. The fact that it was being sold so cheaply was the reason my parents could afford one. I'm thankful for that as its sparked my lifetime interest in computers.

My condolences. Between listening to Pantera and watching your channels, you and your family really helped me through some real bad times. Thank you, and sorry for your loss.

Amazing work, as always! Can’t wait for the Commodore 128 video!

The Plus/4 looks so beautiful. It looks like a gaming machine, with these vents, black colour and the sleek appearance. I love it. Too bad it was not designed as a gaming machine. Still, it would be nice to have one to fiddle with.

Nice one David! I had no idea about any of these in the commodore line and of course you put in so much detail about them what's not to listen to, and to have a person personally involved talk as well that's top notch, I don't comment much sorry about that but really excellent, keep it up!

I like your videos and your clear, usually concise, and carefully opinionated delivery. You make a lot of observations that I often wondered if I was the only person who noticed these things. In this video, you mention the power port on the C-64 being on the side. I had a nice desk in my room as a kid and the power cord made it so I couldn't retract and close the keyboard drawer the way it was designed to close unless I unplugged the power cord.

Those demos toward the end of the video are astonishing!!

I had a Plus/4 as my first computer. My favourite games were Ace, Mercenary, Icicle works, Bandits at Zero and Winter games by Anco.

Your Commodore history series is amazing! Thank you so much for making this.

This series was very much enjoyed. Thank you for all the great content!

I got my first computer of a C16 when I became 10 in 1987, we bought it in Wien when we could travel there. I based my programming skills then and motivated to learn programming in my secondary school. There were Commodore club events monthly and introduced to a guy who could expand my C16's RAM to 64K, so after that I could play with games requiring that amount of memory. But I never could understand why is its sound capabilities worse than C64 when C64 was running Basic v3.0, and C16 with Basic v3.5 That's the only computer I still got, but my game casettes lost when moving. Sadly it does not worth a lot.

Thanks for having Bil. I feel like I want to see more from him. I'm sorry to hear your friend passed away. I can see myself in pictures with a dear work colleague, in weird looking outfit 20 years from now. This episode is dedicated to Dave!

Hilarious how alimony got added on the bottom of the spreadsheet. Your dry sense of humor is 👍

that was a really, really good video. the colors for back then on the plus4 were absolutely incredible. i liked seeing bill in there as well. can't wait for the next instalment!

Im in the UK and my first computer was a c16. I definitely had a 16k version of mr puniverse on the mastertronic label.

@rjbush7955

5 жыл бұрын

Ah Mastertronic! I've been racking my brain trying to remember their name. £1.99 for a game and most were pretty good.

Finally! Been looking forward to this part of Commodore history.

my first computer was aTRS80 Color Computer then the c64 then had for several years bought a commodore/plus4 for the extended basic the video chip fried so the it was toasted so I ended up going back to the c64 for until I got an Amiga 500. And finally sold out to IBM but I did like those older systems they were fun and i learned a lot. Enjoy your channel immensely you have quite a collection of gear nice to go down memory lane with you in this series.

I know I'm a bit late watching this Commodore series. But I have got to tell ya, the amount of education in these videos and the huge bank of knowledge on your part, is absolutely phenomenal! I really enjoyed your hard work and effort providing all the information in a clear, easy to understand format. Gonna be watching your channel a lot more. 👍😎👍

Love this series. Can't wait until the Amiga makes an appearance!

Did I hear a slip of the tongue: Jack Tramiel 'went to work for Atari'? Technically true, I suppose, but it would be more accurate to say he bought Atari!

@The8BitGuy

5 жыл бұрын

It's really more complicated than either of those statements. And since I didn't feel like devoting 5 minutes of the video to explain the details, I felt that was a good way to state it.

@6581punk

5 жыл бұрын

He founded his own company, bought Atari consumer division from Warner and renamed his company Atari.

@CyprienLaplace

5 жыл бұрын

Small question, do you plan to do an Atari History series? That would be awesome :-)

@will_it_work

5 жыл бұрын

Exactly. Not sure what else there is than that.

@6581punk

5 жыл бұрын

History of the development of the early arcade machines, through to the VCS and the sale of the company to Warner. Then the 800, 400 etc computers, 5200, 7200, XE and the sale to Jack. There's a documentary series called Once Upon Atari, but it's not that thorough, more of a "what it was like to work at Atari" documentary.

What a great episode about the commodore 264 series! Well done!

This might be your best video yet. I had a c64 for years, then an Amiga. I knew of the other models, but never game them any thought back then. It is absolutely fascinating. Most Amiga fans now of Tramiels involvement between the Atari ST and Amiga, but seems like there is much more to that.

The arrow keys on the plus/4 were absolutely awesome... perfect for kids playing games.

I am very lucky, I have the C16, Plus 4, C64, C128. My wife got me the C16 when it first came out here in the UK, and I have to say the Basic 3.5 ran rings around the C64, and also both the C16 and Plus 4 had a pallatte of 121 colours to play with. I loved to program in Basic a heck of a lot from the C16 then I got a 64K ram expansion for the C16. All in all they are all good. It depends on how much money a person has in the first place. Each has its own good and bad points, but that does not make for example the C16 a poor machine. The C16 came out with some pretty good games. Considering that the C16 only had 12277 bytes free, it done some good stuff that made a lot of boys happy. Its as simple as this, each to there own.

Excellent video as usual; it does have much of the information on these products that is available on other KZread videos, however what makes this one shine is the extra material featuring Bil Herd, (one of the Commodore engineers that originally developed the Plus /4) which was awesome to see; also I had no idea the Plus /4 was capable of such stunning graphic demos. And, of course, the usual quality and polish we have come to expect from the 8-Bit Guy is in abundant evidence.

Nice video. Brings back memories of the day. I have a Commodore Plus/4 in the garage I've been saving. I wish I had a Commodore 16 for my collection. Also have Commodore 128 and 128D. Can't wait to see your video on that.

"Recovering Commodore engineer"... classic

Can't wait for part 5. The C128 was the first computer I ever personally owned. I got it for Christmas in high school. Before that, I had only used what we had in school.

Thanks a lot to The 8-bit guy for incredibly interesting videos on Commodore history! I think the Commodore 64 computer ROCKS!!! And I'm talking mainly about its SID chip. I love the soundtrack from "Monty On The Run". Superb music which I still listen to, to this very day since my childhood!

Great video David. I really enjoying the Commodore History series. Look forward to the next one.

R.I.P. Dave DiOrio It was amazing making about of things.

C+4 my first computer! Instant like! Cursor keys were OK, definitely better than what C64 had. Shame about the missing sprites and proper sound. Monitor was good enough to code pretty much anything. Most of the +4 demoscene developed stuff in monitor all the time. Many of these demos/games shown at the end of the video are made by friends of mine :)

@ehjones

5 жыл бұрын

No way, C64 cursor keys are the way they’re supposed to be! ;) I remember seeing 4 cursors keys for the first time on a PC keyboard in the early nineties, “wahhhh??!”

@AllGamingStarred

4 жыл бұрын

@@ehjones at least they got it right, couldn't imagine it any other way

Thanks for another great video. The C116 was my first computer ever. Games were mostly better on the C64. But programming in BASIC (and even Assembler) was way more comfortable on this machine. It got me into programming. I do not want to miss this experience.

Great video. The plus/4 was my first home computer, and I still have one (which I hooked up to the TV earlier this year to show my 9 & 10 year sons what I used to use) I used to love programming on it (Basic only). There were some really good games. 'Oblido' being one of my favourites. 'Tom Thumb' & 'Ace' plus/4 versions were great.

Great to see Bil Herd in the video, if only a little. Very sad to hear about Dave DiOrio. I've never even seen a Plus/4 or TED variant up close and personal - I've read Brian Bagnall's amazing book and so know the story, and I always dismissed it as just another short-sighted Commodore move (which it was, but hardly the fault of the designers). Hugely impressed on seeing those demos and 3D games. Can't wait for the next video in the series, keep it up David! :)

I'm loving this series. I was Jones'ing for an 8-bit episode checking the kickstarter every day several times a day, which has gone nuts! Over $100k and still climbing! This video finally helps me better understand the downfall of Commodore. Sr. Management messed it up. Who would've thunk it? Too bad because while my first computer was an Apple IIe with 128k RAM and duo disk drives and a color component monitor. And while I truly loved it, I continually think in retrospect that it should have been a C64 and later a C128. I do hope David covers the downfall of Commodore in more detail. I recall a comment discussion I had awhile back that helped stating that one reason Commodore failed was because they failed to capture the business market and as a result they lost the home market because Mom's and Dad's would want a similar platform at home to what they had a work, which was an IBM compatible computer. This argument makes a lot of sense, but is there more to it? I'm sure David can get to the bottom of it so we understand why we don't have Commodore compatible computers today, but IBM compatibles.

@frankschneider6156

5 жыл бұрын

Oh there are 3 other things: a) Commodore (for whatever reason) never managed to sell the Amiga in the US in significant quantities. It was primarily a European system and the Amiga also never managed to enter the business area (except for a niche in video editing, just like the ST did with the music industry), b) IBM PCs moved from EGA/CGA to VGA, thus suddenly becoming a competitive gaming platform, meaning you could do work AND play on the same machine. c) with Windows 3.1. the PC got a GUI that was at least somewhat of the same quality as the Workbench. At that moment (in the early 90s) people all over the globe moved over from Commodore home computers to PC compatibles, leaving Commodore a struggling company without any products that were selling, as everything they tried (e.g. PC compatible business computers or the CD32) flopped. Soon thereafter the ran out of cash and filed for bankruptcy. In principle all Commodore ever had was just 1 successful computer design: It started with the, PET which was moderately successful, followed up by an act of ingenuity: the VIC-20 which was a great success. The C64 is i principle just a VIC-20 on tons of steroids, and thus was a gigantic success. But that's it. The Amiga was also brilliant, but it was not developed by Commodore, but acquired by buying an external company (after Tramiel, now at Atari, had botched the deal). So in principle Commodore just manged to get 1 computer design right: the VIC-20/C64 breadboxes, that carried the company for more than 10 years.

@willierants5880

5 жыл бұрын

Thanks Frank!

Great job on this series! Very in-depth, very enjoyable!

The C16 seemed moderately popular in the UK. I don't recall much in the way of big titles, but shops certainly sold the budget titles for it. The C16 was my first computer. I enjoyed it - certainly an upgrade from my Atari 2600

Greetings from Hungary and thanks for this amazing series of Commodore history! :)

12:57 Just recording alimony payments on a Commodore Plus/4, like my father before me.

Long ago, I purchased a surplus C=16 keyboard at our local Radio Shack. I plugged it into a “reject” VIC-20 motherboard that I got from All Electronics. This was probably the first computer that I had ever built up from spare parts. Anyway, well done Dave, I enjoyed the video very much.

Great series, and GREAT to see Bil Herd unearthed and commenting on on the glory days! He looks just like I imagined he would ;-) Fantastic episode on a series of computers I ignored back then as even with the higher speed CPU, it was worthless to me without being C-64 compatible. It took the paradigm shift of the 16-bit CPU, color GUI and screamingly powerful custom chips harnessed to a fully pre-emptive multitasking operating system in the Amiga machines to pull me away from the mighty C-64.

All this and Bil Herd, why can I only give one thumbs up?

I typed my first own programs on a C16, it played a major role in my decision to become a software engineer :)

@loganmacgyver2625

Жыл бұрын

I'm always amazed how many programming careers started with "10 print hello 20 goto 10" Or the example programs from the books, the 8 bit generation brought us so many programmer's because those machines threw you straight into the water with programming

"Hi I'm Bill Heard recovering commodore engineer" Nuff said. Maximum respect . This guy BOOTSTRAPPED the electronic society we know today.

Hy! I'm from Hungary. We had a Commodore 16 with a diskdrive and a casette drive, I had a lots of enjoyable moments with this machine. (The neighbor's son had a C64 which was a way more cooler machine than my C16. We played a lot with Golden Axe.) After we sold the C16 and upgraded to 286, one of our family member gifted to me a Plus/4 which was found at a loft as he mentioned. The Plus/4 already had a casette drive with a genuine german mushroom collector program. Such a good memories!

Bil Herd is so cool

@Chordonblue

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah - totally love that guy!

@lordevyl8317

5 жыл бұрын

David Pleasance is a pretty cool guy to listen too as well, especially when it concerns the Amiga

Thanks, Bill and Dave! :-)

This is great. This might be your best computer history video to date! Thanks for doing it!

This is a very interesting series. I can't imagine the time and effort it takes to create these videos. Great work! I've been wanting a Commodore 16 for a little while now, but i haven't pulled the trigger yet. I'm generally much more into consoles, than i am computers, and for the most parts, your channel satisfies my curiosity in that department. However, for some reason the C16 seems fascinating to me. I do own a few Commodore machines, like a CD32, and a CDTV, and of course a C64, model C though. The C64 GS is my holy grail system. I'd absolutely LOVE having one of those, but i'll probably never be able to afford one. But, i think a C16 would be an interesting addition to the Commodore section of my collection. Looking forward to the next video!. :) Thanks and keep up the good work. Kind regards.

This was my first computer - when I moved over to the C64, I did miss the improved basic.

Man, I've been sitting on a beautiful CIB Plus 4 for years now, never knew how powerful it actually was. I'd die and go to heaven if I could get my hands on a 1551 drive so I could load up some of those amazing looking demos. Great work as always on the video!

@SpearM3064

5 жыл бұрын

You can always try to find out if the SDI2EC is compatible with the Plus/4, and use that. I don't see why it wouldn't work; the Plus/4 is compatible with the 1541, and the SDI2EC emulates the 1541 but uses an SD card. Hop on over to www.thefuturewas8bit.com/contacts/ and send them a message, if you're interested. Ask 'em if it's compatible with the Plus/4, and what you'd need to get it working.

@TRX303

5 жыл бұрын

You can use every drive that works on a C64 on the Plus/4 as well. I'm using my 1541-II because the 1551s are so damn expensive. Btw I don't know of any demo not working with a 1541.

I love this type of videos man! Keep em coming. (and your restoration vids are top notch too!)

"Let's turn it around and take a look at the ports in the rear" -- my proctologist

C=16 (with additional RAM modding) was my first computer ever. I learn on it about computers and create there my first programs. THX for that great video.

@SharkoonBln

5 жыл бұрын

Same here. Upgrading the RAM was quite popular over here in europe since some computer magazines published a how-to. Whike I was on it, i felt the CPU and TED got quite hot, so I glued heatsinks on them.

I've just got a working Plus4 again of eBay, I had one back in the day. Also got an original version of ACE +4 Combat simulator on tape. The first known software with digitized speech. I forgot it took 30 minutes to load! All good fun. Great video. :)

Amazing what i learned in this Commodore series. Thanks Dave

For anyone interested in the business side of the Commodore story, I highly recommend Kim Justice and her Commodore, Sinclair and Jack Tramiel. When I saw that David was going to do a series on Commodore and was initially slightly disappointed, as expected it to cover the same ground, so was happy to discover that it (in hindsight unsurprisingly) has a much more technical focus and is actually a great supplement for Kim's videos. It is some of my favourite stuff on KZread, so I thought I would share it. I normally wouldn't like "advertising" for another channel this way, but it i such a different style and focus, while simultaneously both having a strong interest in retro gaming, that I had to mention it. kzread.infosearch?query=commodore+

Excelent episode

Another great video! Your channel/show is defo my top KZread watch these days just ahead of techmoan and lgr in my opinion. Keep up the good work

I love these Commodore History videos, and to have some insider information in addition is absolutely fantastic!

Mercenary might have been one of the deepest games back then with an immersive open world that had missions, multiple ways to win the game, etc. BTW the whole Mercenary series is playable on PC now.